How We Met
One night, in my sophomore year of high school, my friends and I decided to go hang out on a high school football field. That was the “thing” to do. One of my friends was friends with Eric’s friend, so we went over to them and started talking to them. We hung out with all of them, but Eric had a girlfriend. I slowly became friends with his friends and would video chat with them and when I got Eric’s phone number, we put our numbers in as “best friends <3333333.” ‘Till this day, Eric swears he knew he was going to marry me the first night he met me (but I never believed him, haha). Eric would text me once in a while, but I never thought anything of it. Fast forward to senior year, Eric was no longer with his previous girlfriend and we were out at a club in the city, and we kissed. After that, during the summer of 2011, Eric asked me on a sushi date. We had a great time, however, I knew I was going away to college at the end of August. My little sister jokingly wrote on my dry erase board when moving into college, “Never forget Eric.” The first couple of months I was away we would text a lot and when I came home for Christmas break we spent a lot of time together. Eric asked me to be his girlfriend on January 9, 2012. As he would say, “You were leaving for school and I didn’t want our winter break love to end.”
How They Asked
Eight years later, everyone would always ask when Eric was going to propose, but I never felt pressured or rushed. I knew everything would happen at the perfect time, in the perfect moment. We were just enjoying life together so much love, laugh, and adventures. Every year our friends take a group trip somewhere. We decided to go on a nature vacation because of COVID-19 to California. We started the trip off hiking in Yosemite for a few days and then drove up to Lake Tahoe. The first day in Lake Tahoe we enjoyed the beach and when we came home everyone decided they wanted to go watch the sunset. I didn’t understand why we had to rush to get ready and watch the sunset on the first night there when we had the rest of the week.
Eric kept saying he really wanted to go to this known spot and wanted to take my picture at sunset. Eric and I love watching the sunset, and have done crazy things in the past to rush and get there, so this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. When we got to “Cave Rock” we all realized it was an actual hike. I had on sandals, so I was a little concerned about going to the top. On the way up, I scraped my knee and was bleeding a little, so the whole way I was trying to find someone with a napkin. I finally did and Eric convinced me to go to the scariest rock there. Eric loves to climb on rocks and hang off cliffs, which scares me to death. But, I sat on the rock and was watching the sunset. Eric was behind me and talking about all the sunsets we’ve seen this summer.
In my head, I was wondering why he was asking which sunset was my favorite. Eric asked me to stand up, but I was too scared on that rock I wanted to stay seated. He continued to talk and then said, “this sunset is about to be your favorite one.” Still, I thought nothing of it and had no idea what was going on. I slowly turned around to look at Eric, and he was down on one knee, I still did not know what was happening. Finally, he tapped me and I saw the ring and my body went into complete shock. I didn’t expect him to propose on that trip, let alone at that moment. It couldn’t have been a more magical moment for us. Time froze and it was just me and him up on that rock.
